


What You've Lost

by AellaIrene



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Family Issues, Infidelity Issues, Reign of Dorca Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:54:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AellaIrene/pseuds/AellaIrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year and a day after the death of his first wife, Dorca Vorbarra marries again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You've Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a comment on the Bujold list, in which LMB said that "Xav was Yuri's younger half-brother (no, I have never worked out how much younger) who was not legitimate, but rather, legitimated, when, however long after Yuri's mother died, Dorca married Xav's mom." Not part of the Come to Dust'verse.

Yuri sat on his throne, and watched the Counts take oath to his new stepmother.

At least his father had waited out the mourning period, if only barely: Yuri had burned an offering for Mama yesterday, his short black hair mixed in with Anatasie's fluffy baby curls. Father had not been absent: that would have been too pointed, with all their Vorrutyer cousins there as well, but he had been remarkably quick about it, and That Woman had been waiting in the carriage. And he hadn't been present at the family meal afterwards, where the aunts had cooed over Anastasie, but off helping That Woman and her bastard be fitted for wedding clothes.

It was all of a piece with what had come before.

Father had not been there, when Mama died, because Father had been off with his mistress, whatever his schedule. And so Yuri had stood as witness to his sister's birth, and his mother's death.

He'd named her, too, because Father wasn't there, and she needed a name, in case she died, and Mama couldn't find her among the other lost unnamed. So he named her Anastasie, and promised her that he would take care of her.

And now she was crying as That Woman picked her up, and said how pretty she was, and That Woman's son put his hands out-- "Don't touch her!"

"Yuri," Father said, impatient. "Why--"

"He might drop her," Yuri said. It might even not be on purpose.

"Of course Xav won't drop her. He got full marks for marksmanship, he can--"

He'd never been that proud when talking about Yuri. He'd always treated him as some sort of vaguely amusing idiot. But his bastard son--

"I know," Yuri said coldly, took his sister from That Woman's hands, and left.


End file.
